Tweet
This is a long one, so bear with me.
My coworker got SC first.
He wants an auto loan. Buying from an individual. Can't afford the loan on his own, so has to have his wife added to the loan in order to include her income. His wife is overseas. This could be doable, via electronic documents. But for an electronic loan closing, we need EVERYTHING prepared ahead of time, including getting the title from the seller and vehicle POA signed by the seller giving the bank permission to take the title out of his name once everything else is ready to go. (We don't have the seller fill out the back of the title because if something goes south, we can just shred the POA and give the title back). Sometimes, the seller isn't willing to hand over the title and sign the vehicle POA, even to a bank, before getting their money. Understandable, but policy is what it is. Knowing this could be an issue, CW tries to explain the process to SC upfront.
SC doesn't understand. Tells CW "Don't talk to me about this. Talk to the seller. Tell him what you need."
CW agrees to explain to the seller directly. Let's SC know that, after she gets what she needs from the seller (assuming seller agrees), customer can come back in to complete his part and she can run the electronic closing paperwork to send everything over to his wife's e-mail and have her "sign" electronically.
SC does not have the seller's phone number with him so gets CWs phone number and promises to have seller call in the next morning.
The following afternoon, SC comes back. CW is busy, so I get him (joy oh joy).
SC: Why hasn't my wife gotten her paperwork yet? She's half a day off-hours from us, so she's in bed now. She was supposed to get her paperwork e-mailed to her this morning.
Me: *take some time to catch up on what is going on* Okay, it looks like CW hasn't been able to get back in touch with the seller yet...
SC *interrupting* He called her this morning! THREE times! And left messages every time! This is unprofessional! I was promised that my wife would have her paperwork this morning, and now it's going to have to wait a whole day. She's asleep now. The paperwork was supposed to be there this morning.
Me: I apologize sir, but we have been busy all morning and likely my co-worker has not had time to get back on her voicemails yet. If he left his phone number, or if you have it, I can call the seller to go over things now.
SC reiterates that he was *promised* the loan would be ready this morning. I attempt, briefly, to explain that as we need the actual title, his signatures on his part of the paperwork and his wife's e-mail address (yeah,neither of them had given us that yet), it really would have been next to impossible that everything would have been ready that morning. However, if he will give me some time to work things out, I can see if I can get everything together for him now.
I decide to make some exceptions. I contact the seller and just get a faxed copy of the title. He's reluctant, but I tell him that I HAVE to have verification that the VIN is correct, the title is an active title and who is the owner so I have down on the loan paperwork who we are giving the proceeds of the loan to. I'm already making an exception by waiting to get the actual title. After re-assigning the loan to myself and putting on some very clear notes that NO ONE is to mess with this loan without talking to me first, I let the SC and seller know that I will go ahead and process the loan paperwork, and once everything is done, the seller can come in and I will personally hand over the check in exchange for the title and signed POA. (I'm very careful here, because if someone else were to mistakenly give the money to the seller without the title because I'm doing it out of order, it's on MY head.)
I go over the loan details with the customer, have him sign his part (all the while, him complaining about me going over ANY details as to what he's signing...apparently, I'm just to tell him to sign and leave it at that) , get his wife's e-mail, and send the electronic forms out. I set it up so that the SC in front of me will get an e-mailed confirmation and copy of the completed paperwork once his wife has completed her part. I let him know that if she gets her part completed the next morning, I will complete the loan and he can come in with the seller at any time so the seller can turn over the title and sign the POA and get his money.
SC: No! I work tomorrow! I need you to take care of it. You said I have everything I need to sign, signed, so just get the title and give the seller his check.
Me: I can do that for you. As soon as I have everything back electronically, I will call you to let you know, then the seller will need to come in to see ME and I will make certain I have the title and his signature to allow us to get the title into your name. Then I will give him his payment from the loan. You will need to get temporary tags from the title office since we're going to be doing the titlework but we aren't set up to do temp tags. The completed loan agreement will allow you to get the 30-day temporary tags, and we'll have the memorandum title out to you in 2-3 weeks once the titlework is completed so you can get your permanent plates. (Note to the public: it ALWAYS takes longer for a bank to do your titlework than for you to do it directly, but since we want to ensure our lien is properly placed on the new title, that's the way it is if you're getting an auto loan for the car.)
SC: I don't want to know all that. Just tell me when everything's done.
He finally leaves my office, then promptly goes to speak to my manager about how incompetent we all are and how he used to love our bank and now we don't take care of our customers.
Grrrrrr..... So, after he leaves, I explain what happened to my manager. She's cool, because I rock and she knows it
but it's still annoying.Anyway, next morning, miracle of miracles happens and the paperwork comes through just fine. I get the loan booked. Seller comes in with the proper title, signs the vehicle POA for me, and I get him his money. All is well with the world.
And then the next day rolls along...
SC comes back in and walks into my office (SO not okay with that. We have sign in stations for a reason, and if you don't like the sign-in stations, you can go to the teller line to be signed in.) Still, he's just here to make certain everything is good. Shouldn't take too long to reassure him, maybe remind him how to get the temporary tags and print out a copy of that loan agreement for him if he can't print it out easily from his e-mail.
Yeah right.
SC: Where's my car and the keys?
Me:
I stumbled here. I really did. For whatever reason, this shocked the hell out of me. I don't remember exactly what I said, but I did clarify that my original impression of what he meant was correct. SC expected ME to collect his car from the seller.
Please note that the above conversation where I explained what was going to happen once the loan paperwork was completed was very close to verbatim. NO WHERE did I promise to collect his car or car keys from the seller. But I should know better, I really should. I should have asked SC to make certain he made arrangements to pick up the car from the seller. Assuming he would have listened to me, considering how many times he cut me off to complain that he didn't want to get into all that, but I was to just "take care of it". And seriously, this has NEVER come up. Normally remote closings are handled in the call center, though, so maybe it's more clear when we're mailing the seller a check that we're not actually picking up the car itself. It was a courtesy to do the remote closing as the branch directly, because CW knew the call center was backed up and it would have taken 3-4 days for them to get to his loan, AFTER they had all of the paperwork from the seller (no exceptions done there).
Anyway, I explain to SC that it is his responsibility to arrange when and how to pick up his car. After giving me death glares, SC calls the seller and makes arrangements without any discernible hassle, then spends time in front of my office bitching and moaning about how disorganized and unprofessional we all are.
SCs like this make me have to remind myself that normally people appreciate it when we do things for them. Hell, most banks wouldn't have even DONE the auto loan, considering that the car was over 8 years old.
Bleh.
Comment